“In Dunkirk, free bus service puts the bus on everyone’s minds”

2023-11-05 16:18:18

They are yellow, orange, green, pink… Impossible to miss them. New generation buses tirelessly crisscross the Dunkirk area and “break attendance records”, as Franck Hogard, secretary of the CGT section at the operator DK’Bus, says while tapping on an internal app.

“Last week, we recorded several peaks of more than 80,000 passengers per day, where we rarely exceeded 40,000 before 2018,” he boasts. The year 2018, a pivotal year, which saw the fulfillment of a promise at the heart of the 2014 municipal campaign: free public transport.

“Several hundred euros in savings”

“Freeness puts the bus in everyone’s head”, assures Franck Hogard. Including that of people who felt viscerally attached to their car, like Ali. In his youth, the man who today works behind the counter at the Terminus, opposite the station, did not even wait to get his license to buy his first car. “For five years, I have come to work by bus, except on days when I bring shopping to the café. »

For Sandrine, who worked as a maintenance worker at the Gravelines nuclear power plant, about twenty kilometers away, this represents “ several tanks of gas » less each month, in other words “several hundred euros in savings, which benefit my children. We go to the cinema, go on outings that we didn’t do before. »

This is precisely what Patrice Vergriete anticipated. The former mayor of Dunkirk, now minister responsible for housing while remaining president of the urban community, intended “restore purchasing power to the inhabitants of the urban area so that they can reinject it into the local economy”.

Buses every ten minutes

If this former socialist elected official seems to have won his bet, with a 2.25-fold (+ 125%) increase in attendance in five years, it is indeed because, in one of the poorest regions in France, the financial argument is carrier. A 2023 study, carried out by the Vigs research association among 589 adults, holders of a driving license and having the choice between the car and the bus, shows that free travel was, for 80% of them, the trigger for a change in habits.

But the introduction of free access was also and above all accompanied by network development. Main development: the creation of six “high level of service” lines, five of which have a frequency of ten minutes, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. “No more looking at timetables” approves Patricia, a chambermaid, met on line C2, the busiest.

Three electric buses have been circulating on the Dunkirk network since 2019. / Michel Houet / BelPress / MaxPPP

At the cost of long and numerous works, lanes reserved for buses have seen the light of day, like the one which, near the town hall of Saint-Pol-sur-Mer, allows the C2 coming from Grande-Synthe to smoothly overtake a queue of motorists waiting at the light. They will wait a few more moments because all the bus has to do is approach the light to get the green all to itself.

Employees who had to be convinced

So many innovations which reassure DK’Bus employees, many of whom, initially, feared the effects of free service on the quality of service as well as on job development. “We went to all the public meetings to try to block the projectrecognizes Franck Hogard. We were afraid that future drivers would be recruited and paid as simple drivers and not as “receiving drivers”, since there was no longer any money to be collected from users. This fear has been lifted. »

The unionists also wondered about the future of the eight controllers. “They finally joined a team which deals with regulation, supervision and intervention on the network in the event of an incident, he says. In the end, no job loss but on the contrary 80 positions created. »

“Today, free access is unanimous among the inhabitants of the metropolis, notes Benjamin Cormier, journalist at TheVoice of the North. Because they no longer have to wonder whether it is worth spending €1.30 for a ticket, they no longer hesitate to get on, whether for a few stops or to cross the metropolis. »

Seniors who have expanded their scope

We see this in particular among young people, like Lilly, a first-year student, who very regularly returns home on the lunch bus. ” at home “. We also see it among a number of seniors who, underlines Benjamin Cormier, haveexpanded their scope and strengthened their social relations: “Now, they happily travel a few more kilometers to participate in an activity or visit a relative or friends. » Inside the buses, too, the atmosphere has changed a little. “We are more serene”, assures Frédéric, a driver. No more tensions linked to the validation or not of transport tickets.

Freeness also turns out to be “one more asset” in the affirmation of this territory as a seaside destination. “We can thus, without spending a cent, follow the coast for around fifteen kilometers to La Panne, in Belgium, then jump on the tram which runs along the entire Belgian coast, which is chargeable”, praises Céline, who welcomes visitors in one of the branches of the tourist office located a few meters from the dunes of Malo-les-Bains. “A real argument for those who come by train, for all those who are sensitive to ecological issues. »

“This model cannot be suitable for all urban areas”

But this almost idyllic picture leaves Gilles Laurent, the president of Fnaut Hauts-de-France, who represents users, skeptical. “Nothing says that we would not have obtained such an increase in attendance without free admission. What really makes the difference is better quality of service, tighter frequencies, timetables and routes adapted to needs. » At the very least, he adds, “this model cannot be suitable for all urban areas”.

The central question is that of financing. In Dunkirk, transport tickets brought in 4.5 million euros per year. To this shortfall were added 12 million euros per year to adapt the network to the expected doubling of attendance and obtain a “demand shock”, as Patrice Vergriete calls it.

Dunkirk benefits from reindustrialization

Where to get this money? “In 2014, the urban community canceled the construction of a 10,000-seat stadium for which funding had already been voted,” he replies. “This represents around a hundred million euros in savings. » The project has since been relaunched.

The introduction of free service was therefore initially possible without any further increase in local taxation. It was only in 2002 that the mobility payment paid by companies with at least 11 employees was increased to 2% of all remuneration, “to increase services towards the industrial-port zone”.

An area poised for spectacular growth, notably with the establishment of two battery mega-factories, those of the French Verkor and the Taiwanese Prologium, which place Dunkirk at the heart of the electric shift taken by automobile manufacturers. This renewed vitality of the industry could result, locally, in the creation of 27,000 jobs by 2040. Obviously not all urban areas can count on such prospects to finance free transport…

The reluctance of companies in the sector

The pitfall then is to see, in the more or less long term, there is not enough money to finance the modernization of the networks concerned, the renewal of equipment, the creation of new lines. In any case, this is the warning formulated by the Union of Public and Rail Transport (UTP) during a press conference at the beginning of October in Paris.

“It is better to favor solidarity pricing, with very reduced rates for those who really need it,” estimates Marie-Ange Debon, at the head of this structure which brings together nearly 200 companies in the sector. The one who also manages Keolis considers it relevant to also propose “one-off operations”, for example by limiting free admission to the Saturdays before Christmas, to facilitate shopping in the city center.

For the UTP, which is based on a study commissioned from Ipsos, only a strengthening of the offer can lead to a modal shift, from the car to public transport. In fact, when asked what dissuades them from taking the bus or the metro, respondents above all mention longer travel times (response cited by 46% of them), excessive time constraints (39%). ) and stops or stations too far from their destination (23%). Free access, this organization maintains, rather has the effect of over-use of infrastructure by users who already use them or who are used to walking and cycling.

After Dunkirk, Montpellier

However, the list of cities attracted by free access is growing. Besides Dunkirk, to date the largest urban area (around 200,000 inhabitants) to apply it in France, we find pioneers like Compiègne (Oise), where buses have been free since 1974, but also Aubagne (Bouches-du-Rhône ), Niort (Deux-Sèvres) or Calais (Pas-de-Calais), which will be joined by Montpellier on December 21.

According to Patrice Vergriete, there is no better strategy for “embarking the population in the ecological transition”. Because she “does not put the end of the month and the end of the world back to back, and focuses on incitement rather than stigmatization.” So much was needed to initiate a change in mentality “in a city destroyed during the Second World War and rebuilt with wide arteries which contributed to the long undisputed reign of the car”.

Regularly, the elected official is questioned. “There is no such thing as truly free, someone has to pay, ultimately – businesses or fellow citizens…” Some also suggest that he talk about transport in ” free access “. Patrice Vergriete then gives an unstoppable response: “Public school is only free because taxpayers pay taxes. And yet, we are not talking about “open access” schools. he argues, convinced that “Mobility is almost as essential in our world as education”.

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The figures which validate the choice of free access in Dunkirk

With the support of Ademe, the Vigs research association carried out a study in the Dunkirk metropolitan area with 589 adults, holders of a driving license and having the choice between the car and the bus. The results were published in 2023.

72% of respondents say that being free has encouraged them to use the bus more.

77% of motorists encountered on the bus used public transport at least several times a week.

The main reasons that lead them to choose the bus are the achievement of savings (response cited by 29% of them) and the performance of the network (27%).

A third of those questioned plan to do without their car in the next five to ten years.